2 October 2006 | Vol. 6, No. 3

During the Ice Age

Even when the slapping northerlies subsided

Everything leaned away in visible pain.

Just Keep Moving, in Latin, across our coat of arms,

The Terror of Life in gesso just beneath.

But where else would we be.

There was great joy then in travel guides,

Frozen bottles of stalagmite milk.

Hoar-scratched windows, long formulas

I've never understood, proving what.

All those arias and knives.

About the author:

Claudia Burbank is the recipient of a fellowship from the state of New Jersey as well as a Pushcart Prize nomination. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Southern Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, and Borderlands.

For further reading:

See the complete list of work by Claudia Burbank at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 6, No. 3, where "During the Ice Age" ran on October 2, 2006. List other work with these same labels: poetry.

42opus is an online magazine of the literary arts.

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